On Marketing, Real Estate, and Technology

Words Don’t Come Easy To Me

The immortal F. R. David… my god, this brings me back to junior high school.

Okay, maybe “immortal” is too strong a term… but that isn’t the point. The point is that a subtext woven throughout Jeff Turner’s amazing presentation on tools for real estate web is that audio and video content is easier to create than written content.

I just have to wonder if that’s true. Of course, I’m biased since I like to write, and I do it for fun. Maybe realtors hate to write, and they do it for work. Maybe they’re just better at talking than they are at writing.

Could that be the truth?

All of the truly horrible agent blogs out there, where there is zero evidence of any thought, any coherence, any logic, or any taste… would they be transformed into great local citizen media sites through the power of audio and video?

I’m just not sure. I guess I’m an old-school guy — if I can blog using pen and paper, I just might….

I’m remain uncertain on the video front. I like it for it’s simplicity and directness. It has it’s place. But I remain a skeptic and sometimes feel that in my former life I was from Missouri.

Standing on my soapbox:
In your opinion does it amount to more than a video tweet. Is this format to become a dumbing down to meet the requirements of the illiterate or those with the attention span of a gnat? Will untrained proponents be able to deliver a decisive call to action message, in 120 seconds (a long time period on the web) or less? Will this format become nothing more than the 30 or 60 TV spot for a car dealership.

On another front, I question the ability of this format to egage the engines. While I’m aware that scolling text can now be can trapped I suspect that until scripts are developed for the spoken words ‘the power of the word’ will remain lost.’

On your question — I’m just not sure. I’m a words guy myself, and because of my background in media, my standards for good multimedia is fairly high. I mean, my wife hates watching movies with me because I’m always criticizing this or that.

So the fascination with multimedia is a bit beyond me. If someone is a horrible writer, I’m not sold that that person is an amazing speaker. I just haven’t met that many people who can’t articulate an interesting idea in writing, but are fascinating when put on video.

Maybe the consumer, however, is illiterate and can’t process thoughts and concepts through the written word. Maybe.

I do want to make clear, however, that Jeff Turner wasn’t saying people should do more audio and video, instead of writing. That’s just something I noticed.